Danger: Strawberry Fields Forever

by R Davis

The more we depart from reason, thefurther reason departs from us.

The Beatles’ song Strawberry Fields Forever was written in 1966 by John Lennon after he had begun using drugs quite heavily, including LSD and marijuana. Named in memory of a Salvation Army home for children where Lennon grew up, near Liverpool, the song has obvious occult overtones, with messages of tuning out of reality and into a hazy, empty-minded, drug induced “place, where nothing is real”—and everything’s cool, no worries! The chorus is:

Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields.Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.Strawberry Fields forever.

In a later song, Glass Onion, Lennon referred again to this place of unreality:

I told you about strawberry fields,You know the place where nothing is real…

The song continues with nonsense that does not even count for doggerel:

Well here’s another place you can goWhere everything flows.Looking through the bent backed tulipsTo see how the other half livesLooking through a glass onion…I told you about the fool on the hill,I tell you man he living there still.Well here’s another place you can be,Listen to me.Fixing a hole in the oceanTrying to make a dove-tail joint-yeahLooking through a glass onion.

As a teenager I listened to this and many other rock-n-roll songs so much their lyrics—nonsensical though they were—were etched into my memory.

So, does it matter?

The mind in human spirituality

The mind is the key to human spirituality. Our minds may be enlightened by truth, or darkened by falsehood. The living God, the God of the Bible, is the God of truth, reason and order. He gives a sound mind, through truth. His enemy Satan, the father of lies, is the god of falsehood and confusion. He hates all truth, and works on destroying the mind. One of the ways he does this is by luring people into drug use, which may then become the springboard of a quest for spiritual wisdom in mystic places “where nothing is real”. Alistair Crowley, Satanist and heavy drug user, featured on the cover of the Beatle’s Sergeant Pepper album, was a proponent of such spirituality. He died addicted to heroin, mind destroyed, insane; nonetheless, his teachings pass for great wisdom among some, including many rock artists. Crowley was also the hero of Led Zeppelin’s guitarist Jimmy Page, and of LSD fan Timothy Leary, who was so deluded he thought he was Alistair Crowley reincarnated.

Another way Satan impairs the mind is by causing us to contemplate nonsense, suggesting it is some kind of wisdom. The mind is then lured away from the course of reason into spiritual darkness and, considering itself wise, becomes very foolish indeed, learning to despise truth. Zen riddles, which are nonsensical puzzles designed for lengthy contemplation in order to arrive at elusive heights of lofty wisdom, are examples of such misguided folly. Nonsensical song lyrics etched upon the mind are not much better.

Strawberry Fields and Glass Onion are songs that covertly promote drug use—I knew that when I was merely 15 years old and listening to them. I was confused as to the semantics, but I understood without doubt that they promoted drug use and a mystic sort of spirituality. And they romanticize altered states of consciousness, where “nothing is real”.

Through meaningless lyrics, songs like these contribute to a shift in consciousness, however slight, and benumb the mind. This is true even though we are unaware of it; indeed, we are likely to deny it. Repeated exposure to such lyrics, if it does not actually lure us into blatant occultism or drug use, at least habituates us to a mystic mindset. In this way we are perhaps disarmed and prepared for a lesser shift away from the way and truth of God. Such subtly dangerous songs were widespread during the 60’s, popularized through the many rock groups that espoused Eastern mysticism and the teachings of men like Alistair Crowley and Timothy Leary. An entire generation of Western youth feasted upon them; this may partly explain how the way was laid for our cultural drift into Eastern ways of thought.

Altered consciousness

Satan wants to shut off our minds, empty our minds, and get us “dazed and confused” (Led Zeppelin). In other words, he works to benumb our intellect and alter our consciousness, all the while deceiving us that this is “spiritual”, and desirable for wisdom or for fun. Actually, it is occult and dangerous.

An altered consciousness opens our minds, and thus our very spirits, to demonic influence. Our thoughts are spiritual, and our minds are the realm of significant spiritual activity. Intelligent, judicious thought will, for believers and unbelievers alike, serve somewhat as a safeguard to demonic influence. (Obviously, the mind of faith, informed by biblical truth, is best protected; the Proverbs are full of teaching on this point.) But confusion, carelessness as to truth, or an entranced mind, make us more vulnerable. In occult spirituality, the seeker makes the terrible error of using the mind in ways that make him or her susceptible to demonic influence.

Satan is the implacable enemy of truth and of all that God has created. Occultism is one way to plumb “the depths of Satan”, and to be immersed in all untruth, and embrace what is false (even a false Christ, if that were possible). The “deeper” occult spiritual practices of drug use, empty-minded meditation, chanting, etc., prepare us for Satan’s spirituality by requiring the seeker to disengage from reason and reality. For by our minds we use reason to seek out and recognize truth, and by an alert and intelligent mind we remain rational, oriented to truth; but dazed and confused, in an altered consciousness, we are disarmed of reason, disoriented as to truth, and thus susceptible to being led into untruth.

Altered states of consciousness are strawberry fields of fantasy, irrationality, and mysticism—the spirituality of the father of lies. They are, as John Lennon said, places where nothing is real. Not real, and not of truth. Yet throughout Christendom, prayer teachers and Christian mystics are luring people into occult practices including “contemplative prayer”, “emptying the mind to receive a prophecy”, being “slain in the spirit”, to name only a few.

Unreality forever….

Strawberry fields, where nothing is real, are spiritual minefields. To “be there”, if I may put it like that, is not to be with the God of truth and the Creator in whom we live and move and have our being. Rather, it is to be with the father of lies, the secret enemy of our souls, who tempts us away from all that is of truth—all that is real. Contrary to Lennon’s assurances, this IS something “to get hung about”. But Lennon got a few things right: the way is down, and strawberry fields are forever: the spirituality they lead us to is of Satan in the immortal realm, and to follow him to mystic places of fantasy and falsehood is to venture into an eternity separated from the God of truth. The temptations of strawberries will pass and, unless we make our escape before it is too late, what remains will be weeping in the unquenchable fires of the soul that did not receive the love of truth, so as to be saved.

But alas, we must say with Isaiah: “Lord, who has believed our report?”

I discuss more about the use and abuse of the mind in occultism in my book, True to His Ways, available for purchase on this website.